It covered the attempt by Rangers to deal with “inaccurate stories” and also referred to Jack Irvine, PR and crisis management guru extraordinaire.

I wrote the following:-

And then, in its penultimate paragraph, the fans are advised that only by reading Pravda the official website will they know the truth – thus implying that every media organisation and newspaper is “anti-Rangers”.

And then, in twelve words which I will quote as the message it sends would be diluted by using my own words, the end of a long and mutually fruitful marriage is signalled:-

“Finally, Jack Irvine of Media House does not speak for this Club.”

Jack Irvine and Media House have been “hand in glove” with Rangers over many years – they were closely connected to Sir David Murray in his time as owner (and with his companies outside football). They worked for Craig Whyte and also continued to serve Rangers loyally during the Duff and Phelps reign. Between February and June 2012 Media House did £124,000 of work for Rangers which, by that stage, was being run by administrators. (In addition Rangers (in administration) paid almost £30,000 to Spreckleys for “media consultancy in connection with the administration” – as I commented at the time, the administrators needed PR people separate from those of the football club, but still charged the company in administration for that!)

Media House continued to work for Rangers until only a few days ago. And now that has come to an end. Continue reading →

On 31st October Lord Hodge dealt with the long awaited application for the liquidation of the former Rangers Football Club PLC. The hearing at the Court of Session took much of the day, as counsel for the administrators and for a creditor argued over whether the order should be granted; whether the fees charged by the administrators should be reduced; and whether or not there should be a continuing investigation into allegations of conflict of interest on the part of Duff & Phelps, the administrators.

Coverage of the hearing was sparse as it proceeded. There is a ban on “tweeting” from Scottish courts. Indeed, when it was brought to the judge’s attention that tweets from the @Huddleboard account seemed to be coming from the court, those in attendance, including members of the public, were asked to confirm that their phones were off and that they were not tweeting. It was made clear that anyone “live tweeting” the case faced being found in contempt of court.

Not surprisingly no one owned up to being the tweeter. It was left to bloggers like me to fill the gap by taking what information had leaked out of the courtroom and trying to explain what I thought was going on.

At the lunch break, and at the close of the hearing there was then a mad rush by journalists and spectators to tweet what had happened, and one in particular, @mdkster, was kind enough to let me reproduce on the blog his detailed tweets regarding the morning’s proceedings. Continue reading →